Although African-American patients tend to have higher pretreatment PSA levels than white patients, the outcome for the disease is similar in the two groups when stratified by known pretreatment prognostic factors. Our data provide no evidence for the hypothesis that prostate cancer in African-Americans is intrinsically more virulent than in whites.

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Melo, in regards to cetacean brain size, body size also needs to be looked at. Think of the extra neurons needed to control a body that large, like with the elephant brain/body relationship, for instance.

I’m also waiting on Herculano-Houzel et al to use the isotropic fractionator on cetaceans, like the long-finned pilot whale to see the neuronal estimate they get to better understand this as well. That, in my opinion, is the gold standard here. As she said in her book (I’ll get the quote later), the isotropic fractionator has yet to be used on their brains to see how many neurons they have. When she talks about humans having the most neurons, she means just using her isotropic fractionator method.

“Melo, in regards to cetacean brain size, body size also needs to be looked at. Think of the extra neurons needed to control a body that large, like with the elephant brain/body relationship, for instance.”

?? I thought you disagreed with the concept of EQ as a reliable measurement of intelligence between species?

“I’m also waiting on Herculano-Houzel et al to use the isotropic fractionator on cetaceans, like the long-finned pilot whale to see the neuronal estimate they get to better understand this as well. That, in my opinion, is the gold standard here. ”

“Several studies have reported total numbers of cells and neurons for the entire cortex. These reports are useful for examining cortical scaling principles across species, but because the cerebral cortex is such a heterogeneous structure with multiple parallel sensory and motor processing systems, whole-cortex cell number data have limited utility for understanding cortical information-processing circuits.”

“More recently, Herculano-Houzel et al. evaluated the number of neurons in the cerebral cortex in nine species of primates and in a tree shrew. This study revealed as much as threefold variation across species in the ratio of total neuron number to total cortical surface area. These findings suggest a nonuniform distribution of neurons in the cortex across species but still do not take into account areal and regional variations in neuronal density within the cortex. Our results suggest that cortical areas vary greatly in neuronal density and that homologous areas vary across species. Our results strongly support our working hypothesis that areas across the cortical sheet vary in neuron density and also vary internally according to the representational zone”

“In all cases, neuron density and the ratio of neurons to nonneuron cells (mainly glia) varied greatly across cortical areas and regions. The highest values were obtained from V1 in each species, but other sensory areas also had high values in the Old World macaque monkey and baboon. Repeated counts from the same tissue were highly consistent, rarely varying by more than 10%”

Psychology? It doesn’t even have any value. It’s starting to wanting to have with Evolutionary Psychology, but it’s by far the most wasteful thing ever.
Like Emil Cioran said:
“A thousand years of wars consolidated the West; a century of psychology has reduced it to the bitter end.”

But why Physiology is weak and limited? Because it works just like Taxonomy, it doesn’t even bring anything to the table, only compares.

I agree with you on psychology, that’s a good quote. Psychology will be eventually supplanted by neuroscience.

On physiology, I don’t agree. You should buy an anatomy and physiology textbook, and read it through to understand that your statement is 100 percent incorrect. Physiology is not’ weak and limited’ at all. It’s apart of the beauty of form (anatomy) and function (physiology).

does france have only 3 publicly traded banks with hq in france? bnp paribas, soc gen, and credit agricole? with some of credit agricole’s constituent regional banks traded also? now intesa and caixa are trading at p/b = 1. why aren’t the french banks? the french banks are tres inefficient. why?

That’s a bit surprising. I (and many I think) would have expected Britain’s, Ireland’s and Australia’s to be higher than France’s). And Spain’s is significantly lower than Portugal’s. Finland’s (not quite Eastern Europe) is still higher though.

Hey, RR, I saw a study by Kirkegaard posted by one of your friends(?) showing that diversity did not affect social cohesion. Doesn’t that debunk several lines of research, a) that people prefer members of their own race for friends and spouses (on average); b) several studies showing assertive mating on ancestory; and c) studies showing heritability of ingroup preferance? My line of reasoning is that if people truly do prefer their own race/ethnicity for spouse and friends this should be reflected by group-to-group cohesion but there’s no evidence of such (shown by Emil). Didn’t Emil debunk several fields and studies all at once? Or is that while diversity does not lower social cohesion people can (on average seem to) hold a preference for same race/ethnicity individuals?

“It’s best to ask Kirkegaard directly on Twitter.”
Already did. Just got a vague “no”. See how that’s just useless and just leaves me more confused and upset?

“IT HAS NO EFFECT WHEN IQ AND MAIN EFFECT ARE CORRECTED!”
Yes, I get that but again, doesn’t this also debunk several other claims, studies, fields, etc by this logic: “…that if people truly do prefer their own race/ethnicity for spouse and friends this should be reflected by group-to-group cohesion” here? Is this fallacious reasoning? Or is social cohesion and racial preference two seperate phenomenas?
Basically what I’m asking is:
a) is it “sure, it doesn’t lower trust but people still prefer their own race when giving the chance. That still doesn’t lower social capital though”.
Or
b) When everything else is equal (IQ, personality, personal traits) even racial preferance goes away as reflected by no lowering of social capital.

It’s a legit question….

“None of your claims debunk that!”
?????? I don’t understand what you mean here. I’m trying to just ask a question???

“Emil is basically saying that A multiracial society with smart people cause no problem or significant gain.”
Yes, I get that.

Oh yeah, Fjow, in your opinion do people have a racial preferance for their own race (on average)? I ask because I’m gonna be writing an article in the near future using Emil’s study to debunk some stuff but I wanna know your opinion on this.

From what I’ve read it doesn’t seem like it. I read a long time ago that it affected memory but I think this is false, if anything it lowers reaction time which may give the illusion that the subject has crappy memory.

Hey, FJow, what’s your opinion on racialist who believe in the environmental hypothesis and or don’t care about the the hereditarian hypothesis between groups but still desire their own homeland and place to their own? Are you okay with people making racialist homelands as long as physical harm is not being placed on people?

Since the evolution of genes by natural selection is a relatively slow process, mechanisms of phenotypic flexibility are evolved to adapt to contingencies on the time scales ranging from a few hundred milliseconds (e.g. avoidance of immediate physical threats) to a few millennia (e.g. cultural adaptations to local environmental variation in the Holocene).

[…]

Organic evolution updates the gene frequencies of populations based upon the fitness of alleles. Learning updates behavioral priors based upon the reinforcement of alternate behaviors. Genes and mechanisms of phenotypic flexibility are not isolated but richly interact. Classically, genes are said to code for the reinforcers that shape behavior in individual learning, for example. It is currently controversial whether or not these interactions include a role for the products phenotypic flexibility directly shaping selection on genes.

This echoes Richardson’s theory of the evolution of intelligent developmental systems. Systems need faster ways of adaptation one way to adapt faster is an intelligent physiological system that can sense cues from the environment and thusly direct development/gene expression so the system can better survive.

And the ‘classically’ line about genes is wrong. Variation made by intelligent systems far outstrips that which occurs by natural selection, and on a quicker timescale. These systems evolved due to unpredictable environments, and so a certain plasticity—during development or otherwise—is needed due to unpredictable environments.

“Though a plan implies action, it does not itself act, so if the genes are a blueprint, something else is the constructor-construction worker. Though blueprints are usually contrasted with building materials, the genes are quite easily conceptualized as templates for building tools and materials; once so utilized, of course, they enter the developmental process and influence its course. The point of the blueprint analogy, though, does not seem to be to illuminate developmental processes, but rather to assume them and, in celebrating their regularity, to impute cognitive functions to genes. How these functions are exercised is left unclear in this type of metaphor, except that the genetic plan is seen in some peculiar way to carry itself out, generating all the necessary steps in the necessary sequence. No light is shed on multiple developmental possibilities, species-typical or atypical.” (Oyama, 1985: 77)